


Gulls (and someone to darn your socks)

by sariagray



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Dark, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-29
Updated: 2012-03-29
Packaged: 2017-11-02 16:10:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sariagray/pseuds/sariagray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack thinks, and reminisces, and counts. Silently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gulls (and someone to darn your socks)

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by analineblue. Post Exit Wounds.

The bite of the metal railing against Jack’s palms stings like needles while the wind presses insistent fingers down the collar of his coat. His eyes burn with it, and his cheeks, too. He lets his coat billow and sway around him, like the wind is trying to strip him bare.

It feels good. Underground is blood on the walls, on the floor, in the stagnant pool at the base of the water tower – it seeps into everything, through the concrete and steel, through his own pores until he carries it with him. Underground is gasping back to life, only to choke on clumps of dirt, mouth perpetually dry (more torturous than not being able to breathe, more painful than the twists in Gray’s face). Underground is no air, no light, no life.

He breathes a slow steady stream in through his nose, the cold drying him out and making him brittle. The bay is spotted dark like an aged mirror; it meets with grey clouds and the seam of the horizon is fresh-welded bright. The day is dimming, evening steadily creeping up on his left. He’s missed the marked flow of time more than he thought he would, and now he wants only to watch its progress across the sky.

His body heaves a shudder when Ianto approaches and stands next to him, the slight rise in temperature making him feel suddenly colder. He counts the gulls searching for their supper like counting seconds or sheep. One gull, two gulls, three gulls, four gulls. 

He doesn’t need to look up to know that Ianto has his coat wrapped tightly around himself, that the collar is tipped up and keeping the chill off his neck, that worn black leather gloves curve around his fingers. He can smell the warmth of coffee, too, against the bitter scent of the water. That does make him look, just in time to see Ianto take a sip out of the solitary mug, one eyebrow raised only slightly higher than the other.

Jack turns back to the gulls.

There is a strange feeling around his big toe, a little sharp, a little cold. Another hole in another sock. The normalcy shocks him like a bucketful of water. The headline streams across his mind: **Life Goes On; Socks Get Holes**. He tries to bend and wiggle his toe away from the gap with little success. He'll have to throw them out, replace them with a new pair. It's a shame, really, that no one darns socks anymore. Not even Ianto.

Then again, there are firm lines (so he tells himself over and over again, like a mantra, as though repeating it enough will make it stick) that he will not cross. Ianto darning his socks is clear on the other side of one of those lines.

There are things he won't feel, _can’t_ feel, either, standing stock still on a pier counting the gulls. (They float on the air currents like ghosts, and they scream.)

Jack looks down and watches as Ianto inches his foot closer until the sides of their boots touch. They line up almost perfectly.

They've worn each other's shoes before, sometimes on purpose but mostly when an alert would come through in the middle of the night and it was all too dark and frantic for them to be bothered to pay attention. There were even times when they didn't notice until long after lunch, and Ianto would wink and Jack would grin and no one else had any idea at all.

Layers of leather and hard rubber are their only point of contact now, but Jack can still feel that warmth radiating along his right side. Thirty seven gulls. Thirty eight gulls. Thirty nine gulls. He wants to say something, anything, "I'm sorry" or "we'll get through this" or even "did you send Gwen home? Has Janet been fed? Are we still waiting to hear back from Martha?" He doesn't say a word.

There is a tearing sound close to his ear, and another, and another. Forty five gulls. Forty six gulls. A handful of paper scraps flutter their wings in front of his eyes and slowly drift into the bay. They float on the surface, white, like dead things, miniature icebergs to trip him up.

Jack doesn't ask what they were from. He doesn't want to know. It might have been a will or a deed, a note from Owen or old instructions from Toshiko. Fifty three gulls. Fifty four gulls.

It might also have been a Dear John letter (figuratively or literally - "Dear Jack, I'm leaving you for the mechanic. She's really quite lovely" or "Dear John Hart, ________." Jack doesn't pretend to know what Ianto would say to John, but he imagines it wouldn't be pleasant) or maybe a simple grocery list. Toshiko had wanted chocolate biscuits, had begged and pleaded with those big eyes Gwen had taught her, even though she didn’t need to. They were just biscuits, after all. Sixty nine gulls. Seventy gulls. Seventy one gulls.

He's well aware that he's counting the same ones over and over. They're hard to tell apart. (Like his ghosts. Like his demons. Like his sins.)

Ianto takes a last gulp of coffee (Jack can tell by the way he tilts his head back just slightly) and leans forward, his arms resting on the rail and his hands clutching the empty mug. He looks a bit like an old fisherman squinting at the horizon, wondering whether the weather will hold through the night and into tomorrow. Jack is tempted, morbidly so, to tie weights to Ianto’s ankles and push him into the bay. Grab Gwen, too, and toss her in after him, just to get it all over and done with now. He’s going to kill them both either way. One hundred and three gulls. He wouldn’t do it, though, _couldn’t_ do it. He, coward that he is, can’t even tell them to walk away and never look back.

He wonders how many ghosts and demons and sins Ianto has, and whether Lisa would count as one, or two, or more. And whether Jack himself would count as one, or two, or more. (“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.”)

Ianto turns and presents the mug to him. It dangles by the handle from his fingertips. Jack stares at it, the sharp cry of the gulls echoing in his ears. He takes it and feels the cooling ceramic against his fingers, hard and solid and heavy and so breakable. 

Without thought, with nothing but the heft and weight of emotion, he throws it into the dark glass of the bay. It arcs across the sky, end over end over end, red as blood against ashen grey, before it hits the surface of the water. It splashes and bobs for a moment and then sinks.

Grasping Ianto’s hand, he turns and walks back to the Hub. One hundred and sixteen gulls.


End file.
